Simpson Babe in Hot Water Over E-Mail to Older Women's League

RUSH: I had this story yesterday, and for some reason I didn't get to it. But it has stayed alive. Did you hear about Alan Simpson's comments? He's on the Obama deficit-reduction commission, Alan Simpson babe. Did you hear what he said? This is funny as hell because people want him to be fired now from the group. "Alan Simpson, the outspoken co-chair of President Obama's debt commission, is in hot water with some advocacy groups after he sent an e-mail to National Older Women's League..." I didn't even know that there was a National Older Women's League. The director of this group is Ashley Carson, who cannot be old. There's not an old woman named Ashley. Back in the old days Ashley was a name for guys, like Ashley Wilkes. But regardless, Alan Simpson compared Social Security to "a milk cow with 310 million teats," only he didn't say teats. He used the street slang word. We have said on this program constantly "people feeding off the public teat" and so forth.

"The letter was a response to a column Carson wrote for the Huffington Post in April defending the entitlement program titled 'Enough with the Pink Panthers Bit.' From Simpson's letter: 'There may be no group called the Pink Panthers working to protect Social Security but I sure as hell am! I've spent many years in public life trying to stabilize that system while people like you babble into the vapors about 'disgusting attempts at ageism and sexism' and all the rest of that crap.' Simpson signs off by writing 'Call when you get honest work!' OWL on Wednesday launched an online petition calling for Simpson to resign from his position over the 'offensive and sexist' e-mail. Fox News reports that Social Security Works has joined OWL in calling for Simpson's ouster. Simpson, a longtime critic of Social Security, has come under fire previously for suggesting 'greedy geezers' are trying to protect their retirement checks while their grandchildren face a mounting national debt."

Look, in certain instances he's right. Remember that call we had, Carolyn from Grafton, off the Mass turnpike? She's since passed away, but she was a seasoned citizen and didn't want to hear a thing about tax cuts because to her that meant less Social Security. And I said, "Do you think your kids ought to have to pay higher taxes?" "Damn straight." She wanted her own kids to pay higher taxes. She wanted everybody to pay higher taxes to make sure she didn't get any Social Security cuts. So she woulda been an example of a greedy geezer. Now, they're not all greedy geezers, but Alan Simpson said that there are some greedy geezers "trying to protect their retirement checks while their grandchildren face a mounting national debt. The bipartisan fiscal commission is set to issue recommendations..." blah, blah, blah.

Alan Simpson has apologized. "I apologize for what I wrote." I was thinking about Rush Limbaugh at the time. No, he didn't say that. I just threw it in there. "I can see that my remarks have caused you anguish, and that was not my intention. I certainly did not intend to diminish your hard work for the Older Women's League. I know you care deeply about strengthening Social Security, and so do I, just as deeply. I remember your testimony at our public hearing in June about the importance of retirement security for women. Over the last 40 years, I have had my size 15 feet in my mouth a time or two. To quote my old friend and colleague, Senator Lloyd Bentsen, when I make a mistake, 'It's a doozy!'" He said he didn't respond sooner because he's on vacation. Nothing odd about that. I mean the Obama people are on vacation when the oil spill happens and other things and they don't come off vacation. (interruption) Hm-hm. Because the truth is politically incorrect, Snerdley.

Snerdley says, "Why does everybody," except me, "who speaks the truth have to end up apologizing?" The truth is politically incorrect. You know what a political gaffe is? When somebody says the truth. Really, it is. A gaffe is when somebody screws up and tells somebody else the truth. Now, Alan Simpson, let's keep in mind, Alan Simpson was all for cut-and-running from Iraq. He was part of James Baker's Iraq Study Group, which said get outta there. Have you noticed how everybody's greedy except for politicians and public union employees? Simpson called 'em greedy geezers and there may be some, but the real greed in our country is in Washington, DC. The real greed is with people who work for government who cannot do with a dime less than they had last year, no matter what, no matter how they get their increased money, their funding. The real greed is among our elected political class. Now, Paul Krugman in his blog, "The Conscience of a Liberal," the New York Times, wants Alan Simpson fired. Figures, Alan Simpson in this instance has -- (interruption) no, I know this, the OWLs, the Older Women's League, they work closely with the NAGs, the National Organization for Women, they're just older NAGs. It's the same bunch of people. They're just demarking their differences by virtue of age and chronology.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here's Paul Krugman: "I always thought that the deficit commission was a bad idea; it has only looked worse over time, as the buzz is that Democrats are caving in to Republicans, leaning ever further toward an all-cuts, no taxes solution, including a sharp rise in the retirement age. I've also had my eye on Alan Simpson, the supposedly grown-up Republican co-chair, who has been talking nonsense about Social Security from the get-go. At this point, though, Obama is on the spot: he has to fire Simpson, or turn the whole thing into a combination of farce and tragedy -- the farce being the nature of the co-chair, the tragedy being that Democrats are so afraid of Republicans that nothing, absolutely nothing, will get them sanctioned." Have you heard this? I haven't heard the scuttlebutt that Democrats are caving to Republicans in this. I haven't heard that tax increases are off the table, only spending cuts. Does anybody believe this? We all know we're gonna get a VAT suggested. We all know we're going to have all kinds of new tax increases suggested. There have been leaks about the higher taxes coming out of this.

So here's this idiot ferret-like Krugman who looks like a weasel, he wants Simpson canned here and claims the Democrats are caving to the Republicans. So Alan Simpson has made some sense here, more sense than he's made in years, and the left has gone ballistic. This kind of hysteria is precisely why Obama set the commission up to report back after the November elections. December 1 is the report date. The last thing Democrats want is a bipartisan discussion and public hearing on how their policies have screwed up the economy and how they intend to pass a VAT tax on solve the deficit problem. They don't want any of that before the November elections. Barack Hoover Obama does not want his economy-crushing, Depression-era ruling class views aired at this point in time. He wants a commission to suggest raising taxes for him. He doesn't want to have his fingerprints on it.